"Mystery Science Theater 3000 is going a bit overboard for Turkey Day 2023, with 48 straight hours of episodes..."

"... from both the classic era and recently-concluded Season 13! Starting November 23 at 9 AM Eastern time, and watchable for free on the show's official Youtube channel, on their official Pluto TV channel, on their Twitch channel, and on their bespoke streaming solution the Gizmoplex. Two full days of cheesy movies and humorous commentary from a human test subject and their automated mocking contraptions."

Metafilter announces.

"[E]ven if we spend another year between now and the election carefully analyzing the structure and shape of the madhouse we’re locked in, it’s still a madhouse."

"As infuriating as it is to admit the electorate may choose another Trump term, the only answer may be to hold on to that truth. Rejecting reality only replicates Republicans’ errors that led to Trump’s rise. Exercise your reason, stay informed, understand what’s happening in all its detail. But at those times when you want to scream in fear and anger, don’t think you’re being foolish or irrational. It just means you can see what’s in front of you."

Writes Paul Waldman, in "How not to have a psychic meltdown when you see new Trump-Biden poll numbers/As infuriating as it is to admit the electorate may choose another Trump term, the only answer may be to hold on to that truth" (MSNBC).

I can barely understand what Waldman in trying to say. He stresses "truth" and "reality," yet the truth/reality that he claims to see is that our country is a "madhouse." So hold onto that and never forget: We're locked in a madhouse! 

I guess one could approach life this way: I'm not crazy, the world is crazy. It allows you to distance yourself from other people: They're not worth understanding or even respect. You're right to fear and hate them. 

IN THE COMMENTS: Wince links to this:

  

And Quaestor adds:

Skijoring.

Wikipedia:

For hundreds of years, Laplanders have been harnessing reindeer and strapping on Nordic skis as a way to travel across vast snowy expanses, and skijoring (spelled skijøring or skikjoring in Norwegian and meaning "ski driving") is still popular in all Scandinavian countries... By 1912, skijoring behind horses was a popular activity in Switzerland, France and the Tatra Mountains of Poland.... In the early 1900s, equine skijoring found its way to North America....

When World War II ended, men from the 10th Mountain Division, our "Soldiers on Skis", returned home. There were no ski resorts or lifts back then, so their cowboy friends attached a long rope to their saddle horn, and the skier held on as the horse was ridden at high speeds down a long straight-away usually an open field or a snow-covered roadway. Mountain towns like Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Steamboat Springs, Colorado took up the sport often running teams of horse, rider and skier side by side down main streets.... Thus, American races were born....

Another view:

"Suffice to say, watching all of MST3k from start to finish is a gargantuan undertaking, and one that likely would take even the most die-hard fan years to accomplish."

"Ranking the entire series? That can take even longer, but I’m happy to report that we’ve pulled it off.... That’s 176 feature-length episodes...."

All on one page, so you might have to wait a minute for it to load. It's worth it. I went right to Amazon and put the highest-ranked ones on my Prime Video wish list.

(That might not be your cheapest option (but as you know, I promote my Amazon portal as the chief monetization of this blog, so consider using it for something else, like Dansko hiking boots, which is what I just bought).)

Trump, from outside of the debate, "will tweet the entire mess like it is Mystery Science Theater 3000."

"The next day, the news will interject his tweets with their commentary about each participant. Obviously Trump’s tweets would include his usual eyebrow-raising insults and claims, and draw all attention his way. And unlike the people in the debate, he can 'twitter-interrupt' them at any point with his counter-punches and clever insults. The media will insert his tweets in just the right place to make their stories compelling."

Scott Adams envisioned Trump's next move, but it turned out that what Trump decided to do in the debate time slot is host a rally for Wounded Warriors.

Adams — who's bursting with respect for the sophistication of Trump's political game-playing — imagined Trump doing something cheeky using social media, something more fun than the stodgy old debate. But Trump chose something more serious, not lighter but heavier, a dramatic — not a comic — performance in the Theater of Politics.

"[Neil] Hamburger’s sets of hackneyed, setup-and-punch line jokes with a side of the bitter are built to bomb..."

"... and rely on pop-culture references that are either too soon for good taste (look for some Michael Jackson jokes on his current tour) or stale going on oblivious. (Who else is still talking about Smash Mouth in 2009?) Yet this rumpled husk of a comic also proclaims his adoration for good old showbiz and laments its decline, especially when he interrupts his shows to scream at audience members who egg on his pitifully out-of-date shtick."

(Clips at that link illustrate the technique well.)

Were you at Neil Hamburger's show at the High Noon Saloon last night? We were. Let this fuzzy iPhone pic prove it:



Or did you make it to "RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 from Outer Space"? We missed that unfortunately, but had a lot of fun laughing at Neil Hamburger and his painfully bad jokes — and JP Inc. and his theme songs for TV shows that don't exist.

"RiffTrax Live: Plan 9 From Outer Space."

"Mystery Science Theater" fans take note!

Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy (the voice of Tom Servo) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot) will appear on the big screen for an evening of live riffing on the 1959 Ed Wood cult classic "Plan 9," from the Belcourt Theater in Nashville...

August 20th, on 434 screens, including Point here in Madison,